Oklahoma State Student Journalist Fired by Paper Over Column Criticizing Mask Mandates

Oklahoma State Student Journalist Fired by Paper Over Column Criticizing Mask Mandates

Speaking truth to power is unacceptable if you’re speaking to the wrong power.

The College Fix reports:

Student journalist fired from newspaper after column criticizing mask mandates

Oklahoma State University student newspaper Editor-in-Chief Maddison Farris was forced to resign recently after facing criticism for writing a column critical of her university’s mask policy.

Farris published her “Enough is enough” column in the O’Colly after being kicked out of class by a professor for not wearing a mask, which she said “multiple phone calls with the governor’s office confirmed” violates Oklahoma law.

“I had done my research prior to the class. Senate Bill 658 informed me that a mask could not be required of me within a school setting in the state of Oklahoma. Knowing this, I decided to take a stand,” she wrote.

Farris argued that the incident was about more than a mask. It’s about control.

“It’s control over my choices, desires and body,” she wrote. “I will not allow any institution to take away my right to decide for myself what is best and to make my own decisions, or to take away the rights and decisions of others.”

Pushback started soon after Farris’ column was published on September 9.

The next day, OSU alumnus and former O’Colly Editor-in-Chief Stetson Payne tweeted a letter calling for the school to review policies for selection of editor-in-chief “given that Maddison has publicly endorsed alt-right, conspiratory and anti-journalism viewpoints on social media prior to her selection to the position.”

In regards to the “Enough is Enough” column posted online and printed in the @OColly. pic.twitter.com/vKiXVOTvOT

— Stetson Payne (@stetson__payne) September 10, 2021

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